2 . Devotees of Stump-town Coffee, a high-end roastery with fewer than 10 total locations in four select cities, pride themselves on avoiding mainstream coffee chains. What they are probably unaware of, however, as they sip their mochas and cold brews, is that their favorite spot of individuality may soon be just another chain in the Phoenix airport. What they might suspect even less is that they will have a different shopping experience in the coffee shop.

Stump-town, the iconic small-scale brand, was recently acquired by Peet’s, a chain with a couple hundred locations. Peet’s has been in the news for taking over Intelligentsia, another well-loved and self-consciously indie coffee brand. Stump-town’s sale to Peet’s exemplifies an economic phenomenon not limited to the world of craft coffee. Stump-town joins the ranks of a number of popular brands that went from independent to corporate - then Italian San Pellegrino, now owned by the Swiss giant Nestle (along with its main competitor Perrier), the originally Quaker-owned chocolate-bar maker, Cad-bury, acquired by the U. S. corporation formerly known as Kraft, and The Body Shop, the cosmetics brand synonymous with ethical sourcing, bought by the French behemoth L’Oreal, to name a few.

Stump-town’s story is typical of an innovative young venture becoming a victim of its own success. Founded in 1999 by Duane Sorenson in his native Oregon, it turned into a national phenomenon and was at the forefront of the small-scale retailers that positioned coffee - making, and coffee-drinking, as a kind of art form. Stump-town’s business model rested on providing an intensely personal experience. Coffee-drinkers were treated with top-notch beans and unique brews crafted in Stump-town’s “coffee labs,” But these personal touches don’t fit well in the assembly lines of large-scale operations.

The arithmetic of the “bigger is better” paradigm(范例), or what economist call “economies of scale,” is simple enough. The larger the machine, the more lattes it can spew out. Most of all, scale translates into standardization: the conversion of an unpredictable creative process into a precise and highly economical algorithm(算法)of production. All of this means more profits.

But, based on studies of human behavior in places ranging from blood banks to daycare centers, academics now recognize that the calculus is more complex: People act more responsibly in the context of personal relationships that are meaningful to them than in strictly commercial deals, Loyal customers don’t mind going that extra mile to get the perfect cup of coffee.

Smaller institutions have much to offer - not just sentimentally, but also in terms of pure economics. The idea goes back to the 20^th century British economist E. F. Schumacher’s declaration that “Small is beautiful,” a notion fashionable again in the era of institutions “too big to fail.” Since the logic of scale is more attuned to quantity than quality, workers (whose wages are usually driven down), consumers (who enjoy lower prices, but usually get a worse product) and the landscape of the economy (which shows signs of marked decreases in diversity) all suffer from growth that is too rapid. Size is the traditional measurement of a company’s success, but when stability is pursued as passionately as profit, less may truly be more.

4 . In “minority report”, a policeman played by Tom Cruise, gathers information from three psychics (通灵者) and arrests future criminals before they break the law. In the real world, prediction is more difficult. But it may no longer be science fiction, thanks to the growing predictive power of computers. That prospect scares some, but it could be a force for good-if it is done right.

Machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence, can lead to remarkably accurate predictions. It works by chewing vast quantities of data in search of patterns. Take, for example, restaurant hygiene (卫生). The system learns which combinations of sometimes vague factors are most suggestive of a problem. Once trained, it can assess the risk that a restaurant is dirty. The Boston mayor’s office is testing just such an approach, using data from online reviews.This has led to a 25% rise in the number of spot inspections that uncover offences.

Governments are taking notice, A London district is developing an algorithm (运算法则) to predict who might become homeless. In India Microsoft is helping schools predict which students are at risk of dropping out. Machine-learning predictions can mean government services arrive earlier and are better targeted. Researchers behind an algorithm designed to help judges make bail (保释) decisions claim it can predict likelihood of committing crimes again so effectively that the same number of people could be bailed as are at present by judges, but with 20% less crime.To get a similar reduction in crime across America, they say, would require an extra 20,000 police officers at a cost of $2.6 billion.

But computer-based predictions are sometimes debatable. ProPublica, an investigative-journalism outfit, claims that a risk assessment in Bmoward County, Florida, wrongly labelled black people as future criminals nearly twice as often as it wrongly labelled whites. Citizens complain that decisions which affect them are taken on incomprehensible grounds.

These problems are real, but they should not spell the end for machine learning as a policy tool. Instead, the priority should be to establish some ground rules and to win public confidence.The first step is to focus machine learning on applications where people stand to gain extra help at school, say, rather than extra time in jail.

5 . Gyms that profit most from the January rush

Every year, like clockwork, many people go through the same routine. On December 26^th and January 1^st, as the fog of cheese, chocolate oranges and champagne lifts, regret creeps（悄悄出现）in. Online searches for “get fit” and “lose weight” increase.    1    “Intent typically takes seven to 14 days to turn into reality,” notes Humphrey Cobbold, chief executive of Pure Gym, Britain’s largest gym chain. So this week will be one of the busiest for the gym industry globally.

Many gym recruits（新成员）will have their new sportswear on for high-intensity interval training. In the basement of Another Space, a club near London’s Leicester Square, music pumps and light flash as a trainer shouts instructions to a group of mostly young women. They are pushed through bursts of burpees, handclap push-ups and various kick and punches at boxing bags. The training is murderous.    2    Such high-end gym can charge up to eight times as much as low-cost ones, based on two visits a week over a year.

They are at one end of a fitness market.    3    America’s market leader, Planet Fitness, promises “the best value on the planet”, and has over 10 million members; its shares rose in 2017. One in seven people in Britain is a gym member, and 35% of private memberships are low-cost, up from 14% in 2013, according to Leisure DB, a data firm. Mid-range clubs, meanwhile, have fared less well. Virgin Active recently sold its less luxurious facilities in Britain to avoid being squished（压扁）in the middle.

Pure Gym expects soon to reach 1 million members. Part of its appeal is that, unlike traditional gyms, members are not bound by a long contract. “We have taken a £500 decision and turned it into a £20 decision,” says Mr Cobbold.    4    Most new joiners do not plan to spend much money. But gyms proper on non-attendance. According to IHRSA, an industry body based in Boston, fewer than half of gym members in America hit the treadmill（跑步机）at least twice a week—until the exercise cycle begins anew the following January.

8 . For years, studies have found that first-generation college students — those who do not have a parent with a college degree — lag behind other students on a range of education achievement factors. Their grades are lower and their dropout rates are higher. But since such students are most likely to advance economically if they succeed in higher education, colleges and universities have pushed for decades to recruit more of them. This has created a ‘paradox’ in that recruiting first-generation students, but then watching many of them fail, means that higher education has ‘continued to reproduce and widen, rather than close’ the achievement gap based on social class, according to the depressing beginning of a paper set to be published in the journal Psychological Science.

But the article is actually quite optimistic, as it outlines a potential solution to this problem, suggesting that an approach (which involves a one-hour, next-to-no-cost program) can close 63 percent of the achievement gap (measured by such factors as grades) between first-generation and other students.

The authors of the paper are from different universities, and their findings are based on a study involving 147 students (who completed the project) at an unnamed private university. First generation was defined as not having a parent with a four-year college degree. Most of the first-generation students (59.1 percent) were recipients of Pell Grants, a federal grant for undergraduates with financial needs, while this was true only for 8.6 percent of the students with at least one parent with a four-year degree.

Their thesis — that a relatively modest intervention could have a big impact — was based on the view that first-generation students may be most lacking not in potential but in practical knowledge about how to deal with the issues that face most college students. They cite past research by several authors to show that this is the gap that must be narrowed to close the achievement gap.

Many first-generation students “struggle to navigate the middle-class culture of higher education, learn the rules of the game, and take advantage of college resources,” they write. And this becomes more of a problem when colleges don’t talk about the class advantage and disadvantages of different groups of students. Because U.S. colleges and universities seldom acknowledge how social class can affect students’ educational experience, many first-generation students lack sight about why they are struggling and do not understand how students like them can improve.

10 . The Best Language for Math

What’s the best language for learning math? Hint: You’re not reading it.

Chinese, Japanese and Korean use simpler number words and express math concepts more clearly than English. The language gap is drawing growing attention as confusing English number words have been linked in several studies to weaker counting and arithmetic skill in children in English-speaking countries.

    1     Among the researchers are Karen Fuson, a professor in the School of Education at Northwestern University, and Li Yeping, an expert on Chinese math education at Texas A&M University.

Chinese has just nine number words, while English has more than two dozen. The trouble starts at “11”. English has a unique word for the number, while Chinese (as well as Japanese and Korean, among other languages) have words that can be translated as “ten-one” – spoken with the “ten” first.     2    

English number words over 10 don’t as clearly label place values. Number words for the teens reverse the order of the ones and “teens”, making it easy for children to confuse, say, 17 with 71. As a result, children working with English number words have a harder time doing multi-digit addition and subtraction (减法)     3    

It also feels more natural for Chinese speakers than for English speakers to use the “make-a-ten” addition and subtraction strategy. When adding two numbers, students break down the numbers into parts and regroup them into tens and ones. For instance, 9 plus 5 becomes 9 plus 1 plus 4.     4    Many teachers in America have increased instruction in the make-a-ten method and called for first-graders to use it to add and subtract.

Now, you should feel lucky that you are learning math in China. Thanks to your mother tongue, all math problems just come less confusing and difficult to you!